[Creating a new international economic order "sounds like an
impossible dream," said the former Greek finance minister, but "not
more impossible than the principle of one person, one vote, or of the
end of the divine right of kings once sounded." ]
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VAROUFAKIS DETAILS VISION FOR ENDING ‘GLOBAL EMPIRE OF CAPITAL’
TO AVERT CATASTROPHE  
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Kenny Stancil
December 12, 2022
Common Dreams
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_ Creating a new international economic order "sounds like an
impossible dream," said the former Greek finance minister, but "not
more impossible than the principle of one person, one vote, or of the
end of the divine right of kings once sounded." _

Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, who called for Ending 'Global
Empire of Capital' at a December 8 Peoples' Forum in New York City to
develop proposals for a New International Economic Order.,
rosalux-stiftung

 

HUMANITY FACES A GRIM fate because the global ruling class refuses to
depart from the capitalist status quo even as their quest to maximize
profits intensifies the climate crisis and the prospects of a nuclear
war. But with enough solidarity, progressives around the world can
build an egalitarian, democratic, peaceful, and sustainable society.

That's the message shared Monday by former Greek Finance Minister
Yanis Varoufakis, who outlined his vision for how the left can work
together to end the "global empire of capital" and forge a humane
future—part of a Progressive International-led effort
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chart a path toward a "New International Economic Order for the 21st
century."

Varoufakis began by noting that "we have never been closer to a
nuclear holocaust than today," as the doomsday clock that scientists
invented in the 1940s quickly approaches midnight. Meanwhile, there is
another clock "counting down to the moment humanity will have passed
the point of no return from climate catastrophe."

"What is the global ruling class doing to avert these twin
calamities?" asked Varoufakis. "Their best to push humanity over both
cliffs at once."

"They have started a new Cold War," said Varoufakis. "They are
pursuing white-hot endless wars around the world—wars that help them
sell more weapons than ever."

"They are drilling with renewed gusto for oil and gas, while
delivering speeches on environmental protection," he continued. "They
are turning the screws on workers everywhere, while waxing lyrical
about social responsibility."

"Enough of their hypocrisy, their war-mongering, their
financialization of lives, and the privatization of our commons,"
Varoufakis declared. "Progressives of the world refuse to take sides
on this new 'cold' hot war. We are instead building a new non-aligned
movement to fight for humanity's survival by working for peace,
solidarity, and cooperation," he added, referring to the assemblage of
Third World nations that refused in the wake of decolonization and
throughout the Cold War to side with either the United States or the
Soviet Union.

According to Varoufakis, the "one thing" that undercuts cooperation,
solidarity, and peace is "the reign of capital over labor and the debt
bondage it inflicts upon the majority everywhere—in the Global
South, but also in the Global North."

As the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' 1974 adoption of the
original non-aligned movement's proposals for a New International
Economic Order (NIEO) nears, Varoufakis argued that to turn
progressives' yearning for a NIEO into reality, a revived non-aligned
movement must "direct large quantities of money into the things
humanity craves, from plentiful green energy to public health to
public education and poverty alleviation."

Just imagine, said Varoufakis, if existing international financial
institutions were restructured and invested "10% of global income into
the green transition, especially in the developing world."

"Of course," he acknowledged, "this will remain a dream unless our
movement manages to dismantle the global empire of capital."

To end "the tyranny of capital over people" and reclaim "plundered
commons on land, in the oceans, in the air, and soon in outer space,"
Varoufakis called for two key reforms.

The first is to ensure that "corporations belong to the people who
work in them on the basis of one person, one share, one vote," said
Varoufakis. The second is to deny "banks a monopoly over peoples'
transactions."

Once that happens, banks and profits will "wither as society's main
drivers," the political economist argued, "because the banks will be
defanged" and the distinction between profits and wages erased. "The
simultaneous euthanasia of the labor markets and the share markets,
along with the defanging of the banks, will automatically redistribute
wealth and as a magnificent byproduct, remove the main incentives for
waging war."

Moreover, "the end of capital's power over society will allow
communities collectively to decide health provision, education, [and]
investment in saving the environment from our virus-like growth," he
continued. "Genuine democracy will at last be possible, to be
practiced in the citizens' and the workers' assemblies—not behind
the closed doors where oligarchs and bureaucrats gather."

Varoufakis admitted that "the twin democratization of capital and of
money sounds like an impossible dream." However, he countered, "not
more impossible than the principle of one person, one vote, or of the
end of the divine right of kings once sounded."

"Unless we bring down the global empire of increasingly concentrated
capital, there is no chance we can end wars, eradicate poverty, or
avert climate disaster," said Varoufakis. "This twin democratization
is nothing short of a precondition for our species' survival."

The former Greek finance minister concluded by calling on progressives
everywhere "to unite in a common struggle not just for humanity's
survival but for a chance at giving every child that is born tomorrow
and in the future a chance at a successful life... on a livable
planet, where war has become extinct, along with poverty and fear."

Varoufakis' address is part of a campaign that Progressive
International launched
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Thursday at the People's Forum in New York City, where scholars and
policymakers from around the world met
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deliberate, and develop proposals for a New International Economic
Order fit for the 21st century."

In a pair of videos shared Monday, Jayati Ghosh, a professor of
economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and one of the
thinkers who participated in last week's discussion, stressed
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ditch neoliberal policies, to "claw back some of the rights that we
have lost over the past 50 years, and to reinvent what we see as a
just, equitable, sustainable, viable international economy."

To start with, policymakers must "undo the major privatizations" of
the past half-century, said Ghosh. Alluding to the ongoing refusal
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wealthy countries and pharmaceutical corporations to share know-how
and transfer technology that would enable the expanded production of
Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments, she also called for
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address "the concentration of knowledge, which has become something
that is actually obscene and actively killing people."

As part of its campaign to win a fresh U.N. declaration on a NIEO by
2024, Progressive International has also launched _The
Internationalist
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subscription-based newsletter featuring exclusive interviews; accounts
of struggle from trade union, social movement, and political leaders;
academic research; translations; art; and more.

The latest edition includes an interview with Andrés Arauz, an
economist and former minister of knowledge and human talent under
ex-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. The conversation with Arauz,
who narrowly lost
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2021 presidential election in Ecuador and was part of last week's
panel convened by Progressive International, focuses
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"political economy of under-development in the Global South."

During last week's event, Yusnier Romero Puentes, deputy permanent
representative of Cuba to the U.N., announced
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the Cuban government had invited Progressive International to host a
NIEO-focused summit in Havana on January 25, 2023.

Progressive International general coordinator David Adler told
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audience that "we are again in a moment of rapid geopolitical
transformation with the end of the unipolar domination of the United
States—but we lack a common vision of the multipolar world that is
now in formation."

"Next month in Havana, we will bring together governments, political
representatives, popular movements, scholars, and policymakers to
start the process of constructing that common vision and building the
power to bring it about," he added.

_Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

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